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Ration Recipe: Oatmeal Drop Cookies

Another cookie recipe! Yeah, I've been on a cookie kick lately. Yesterday I wanted to make some kind of cookie recipe, but I wasn't sure what I was in the mood for. I half-heartedly chose Oatmeal Drop Cookies from The Modern Family Cook Book by Meta Given, ca. 1942.

Well, if I thought I had a regular oatmeal cookie recipe on my hands, I was totally wrong! This little recipe ticks all the boxes of a great ration recipe - low sugar, low fat, whole grains.

I thought it would be fun to compare the Oatmeal Drop Cookies to my favorite Oatmeal Cookie recipe from a modern Better Homes & Gardens cookbook:

The Modern Family Cook Book by Meta Given, ca. 1942

modern Better Homes & Gardens (1990s)

First off, the 1942 version has you sift the flour twice which affects the texture of the cookies. They're not as close and chewy. You can tell that the rest of the preparation is very different from the modern one too. Once you cream the shortening and sugar together with the egg, you add the oats. I had to read that step twice, because I'd never had to do that before!

After mixing up the whole thing, it was a little watery, but it firmed up pretty quickly from the oats soaking up the liquid. Then, there are the nuts. I don't think I've ever had nuts in oatmeal cookies before - just raisins or chocolate chips. I used pecans, like usual.

So, the final result was a light-textured cookie, not as dense in oats, but still retaining that oatmeal cookie flavor. The nuts were quite nice too! This recipe is also nice in that it uses a bit less fat and sugar per cookie than the modern recipe. They're the type of cookie that you don't feel gross after eating - it's not super buttery and it's not super sweet either. That's a good thing!

The modern recipe is still my favorite, but this older version is still pretty tasty.

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If ever there was a myth about history it would be this: Things were dirt cheap back then.

Were they really?
And this is where I rub my hands together and cackle with geeky glee. Just like we shouldn't judge our ancestors solely based on current standards and social norms, we shouldn't judge prices of yesteryear by today's dollar value.

I'll give you some examples.

(And don't worry. I'm not going to get super technical or get all crazy on the math, because Math is not my strongest subject. I'll fully admit I got my math-savvy husband to help me remember the equations I learned from my college economics class.)

I was looking in one of my Health-for-Victory meal planning guide from 1943. They stated that if you followed their meal plan, you could expect to spend between $14 - $16 a week on groceries. You're probably thinking, WOW! I'd love to pay $14/week for groceries! But what's the value of 1943's $14 in our current year of 2015?